I read this in a sitting, revelling in every word-perfect sentence and compelled to turn page after page. This is a beautiful, important story about kindness that will almost, almost break your heart, and then make it sing. Reader, I cried. And Sweet Pea, Bird, Shirt and Tie, and Nellie will live on in my heart just as Leon does. Kit de Waal's best work yet.

Every now and then, you read a nocel that sweeps you into the heart of this emotionally charged narrative.
Our protagonist is Paulette, a young woman working as a health care assistant in a London hospital. Originally from Bassaterre on St. Kitts (Christopher) in the Caribbean, Paulette has been living in London since she was eleven years old and dreams of returning to the Caribbean for her honeymoon with her love Denton. Paulette's dreams are cruely destroyed when Denton is killed and she finds herself grieving and alone. As life continues, Paulette struggles to find meaning in her life and it is only with the arrival of her son Bird, that she truly begins to live again. And then, she encounters 'Nellie', a young boy, of similar age to her son, who is badly in need of a mother and Paulette's actions, will impact on all of their lives over the coming decades.
The characters are beautifully and vividly drawn in The Best of Everything. It is so easy to imagine the setting and to find the characters pulling at your heartstrings. Poignant and uplifting.
This is a novel that I'll both buy for myself and as a gift for others.

I haven't read anything by this author before. Perhaps if I had, I would have known what to from the description of the book. I don't think it is well-described. And that tripped me up at the start and I couldn't quite engage with it. I even thought of not reading it all. That would have been a mistake!

Paulette is a superbly drawn character, as are those that orbit her world. This is a story that is at times gentle, surprising and full of forgiveness and redemption.